The United States of America and the European Union have imposed tougher sanctions on Russia over its recognition of the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine and the subsequent deployment of the army to their territory. Stock markets reacted with another decline. The New York Stock Exchange fell the most.
The deepest ever decline on Wall Street was recorded by the Nasdaq technology index, which lost 2.57 percent in Wednesday’s trading. Technology stocks have thus confirmed the poor course of 2022 so far. Since its inception, the Nasdaq has fallen by more than 16 percent. Much of the blame for this is due to shares of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), which lost more than 40 percent of their value.
The main index of the New York Stock Exchange, the S&P 500, also fell by almost two percent on Wednesday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1.38 percent. U.S. stocks were also affected by the upcoming federal reserve meeting, which is expected to raise interest rates.
The decline in stock markets also came to Europe, although it was not as deep as in the US. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index lost 0.28 percent, Frankfurt’s DAX 0.42 percent and Paris’ CAC 40 lost 0.1 percent. London firmed by five hundredths of a percent. Shanghai and Hong Kong rose, while Tokyo fell 1.71 percent.